Spaces of Appearance and the Right to Appear: March 8 in Local Bodily Assemblies

Aiming to deepen our understandings of corporeal and embodied dimensions of transnational feminist and LGBTI + activism, this chapter is driven by the question: Why does the body still remain an important instrument of queer and feminist struggles in the era of digital solidarities? Following the International Women’s Day in diverse locales in Sweden, Turkey, and Russia, the ethnographic analyzes in this chapter bring forth the significance of embodied forms of resistance for the (re)making of space and explore how resistance flows across various scales. Engaging with the ambiguities of embodied resistance, this chapter visualizes the potential of corporeal modes of resistance to shift from the individual to the collective, showing that attention to multiple scales of resistance can provide more fine-grained understandings of the possibilities and constraints within which feminist and LGBTI+ struggles are located.

Queering gay male body dissatisfaction

A sizable body of psychological research suggests that gay men exhibit greater body dissatisfaction than heterosexual men. However, much of this research has been critiqued for presenting explanatory models that pathologize homosexuality by suggesting that it is the cause of gay male body dissatisfaction. This thesis relied on the voices of 19 gay/queer men/genderqueers to problematize the explanatory models’ characterization of gay identities, communities, and body ideals as monolithic. The participants expressed ideas that were antithetical to the explanatory models’ restrictive formulations of homosexuality. Additionally, this thesis developed a theory of gay/queer embodiment based on the Foucauldian concept of subjection. How the participants negotiated embodied gay and queer identities was explored in relation to larger discursive regimes of power, like heterosexism, hegemonic masculinity, and neo-liberalism. Specific attention was given to queer forms of embodied resistance.

Queering gay male body dissatisfaction

A sizable body of psychological research suggests that gay men exhibit greater body dissatisfaction than heterosexual men. However, much of this research has been critiqued for presenting explanatory models that pathologize homosexuality by suggesting that it is the cause of gay male body dissatisfaction. This thesis relied on the voices of 19 gay/queer men/genderqueers to problematize the explanatory models’ characterization of gay identities, communities, and body ideals as monolithic. The participants expressed ideas that were antithetical to the explanatory models’ restrictive formulations of homosexuality. Additionally, this thesis developed a theory of gay/queer embodiment based on the Foucauldian concept of subjection. How the participants negotiated embodied gay and queer identities was explored in relation to larger discursive regimes of power, like heterosexism, hegemonic masculinity, and neo-liberalism. Specific attention was given to queer forms of embodied resistance.

Applied Scholarship in LGBTQ Aging: Implications for Policy and Practice

Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) elders have shown considerable strength while aging in a society predicated on heteronormative and binary expectations for gender and sexuality. The life trajectories of LGBTQ older adults are shaped by discrimination and stigmatization, and the embodied resistance that comes with demanding their full participation and recognition in society. This symposium highlights the innovative scholarship of emerging scholars in the field of LGBTQ aging who are engaging in diverse substantive and methodological investigations. The first study takes a comparative cohort approach to explore differences in stressors and depressive symptomatology between younger and older sexual minorities, highlighting the significance of cohort effects among LGBTQ people. The second paper uses data from the Health and Retirement Study to examine anticipated nursing home placement needs between LGB and heterosexual adults with suggestions to better prepare aging service networks. The third describes the influence of state legislature mandating LGBTQ-sensitivity training by examining differences in provider baseline knowledge and attitudes toward LGBTQ older adults in two states, one mandating LGBTQ-sensitivity training and one not. The final paper highlights findings from a multi-methods study that explores how long-term care workers, managers, and administrators respond when staff, visitors, or residents challenge LGBTQ rights for religious and moral reasons. Although substantively and methodologically varied, these studies all demonstrate the importance of applied scholarship that builds knowledge in support of policies and practices that promote equity among LGBTQ individuals across the life course. Rainbow Research Group Interest Group Sponsored Symposium.

Operación Araña: reflections on how a performative intervention in Buenos Aires’s subway system can help rethink feminist activism

On July 31, 2018, Buenos Aires’s subway system was overtaken by a public intervention under the name “Operación Araña,” co-organized by Ni Una Menos - a feminist social movement focused on gender violence -, the Campaign for the Right to Legal, Safe, and Free Abortion, unionized metro workers, and more than seventy organizations, with the overall intention of affirming women’s autonomy and calling attention to several social issues with direct impact on their lives. This study weaves a series of reflections on some of the specific features of the Operación Araña intervention that can shed light on how and why the new feminist wave in Argentina has gained such momentum while gauging its impact on redefining what we understand as activism. Drawing from Judith Butler’s notions on the performative political potential of the assembly (Notes Toward a Performative Theory of Assembly, 2015), this article unveils the various forms of embodied resistance staged in the public space by this new surge of activists, popularly called the “green tide” after the color identifying the Campaign for the Right to Legal, Safe, and Free Abortion. In claiming a unique and radical performative space wherein to exercise agency and display new forms of organization, the green tide also has by the same token laid claim to a reconfigured public space conducive to new forms of sociality and the preservation of all lives.

Unapologetic Blackness in Action: Embodied Resistance and Social Movement Scenes in Black Celebrity Activism

American popular culture was established to appease a white audience and continues to operate in such a manner. This pervasive white gaze in the entertainment industry manifests in anti-Black depictions and ideologies. Black celebrities have resisted this distinct form of racial oppression by overtly affirming their Black identity in entertainment spaces. To further explore this phenomenon, the present article examines: How do Black celebrities employ unapologetic Blackness as an embodied resistance tactic to challenge racial inequality in pop cultural spaces? We analyze five cases of contemporary celebrity activism across various pop cultural platforms (YouTube, film, sport, music, and television) and find that just as race is socially constructed, varying across social locations, resistance to racial oppression also varies depending on the site in which it occurs. We further argue that Black celebrities’ embodied resistance converts pop cultural spaces into social movement scenes, thus transforming moments of entertainment into opportunities for political mobilization.

Forever ‘Becoming’? Negotiating Gendered and Ageing Embodiment in Everyday Life

Drawing upon 62 participant-produced visual diaries and accompanying interview narratives, this article explores the significance of everyday body work for people in mid- to later life. Departing from previous work that has explored the intersections of gender and age in relation to a single embodied practice, this article highlights the salience of a myriad of bodily practices for the everyday ways that gender and ageing identities are constituted, specifically hair styling, beauty work, clothing, and dieting. We argue that women negotiate a gendered pressure to age well, which results in an in/visibility paradox, in which they are at one and the same time seen, but not seen. Consequently, we question whether women are thus forever ‘becoming’ – attempting to become embodied subjects, alongside subjecting to ‘becoming’ – aligning with normative discourses. The article examines the competing ways that ageing and gendered bodies are constructed, together with participants’ embodied resistance to negative normalising discourses.